Method and system for processing transactions based on transaction archetypes

ABSTRACT

Certain aspects of the present disclosure provide techniques for processing transactions in a computing system. An example method generally includes receiving a request to perform an operation with respect to an object included in the request. A system identifies an archetype defining properties of the object included in the request. Based on the identified archetype, the system identifies data repositories to commit data to in order to perform the requested operation and rules for performing the operation with respect to the object. One or more actions are executed against the identified data repositories according to the identified rules.

INTRODUCTION

Aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to processingtransactions in a computing system, and more specifically to processingtransactions based on archetypes defining common properties of differenttypes of transactions.

BACKGROUND

Many computing systems are used to maintain records of transactionsrelated to a user of a computing system. These records may differ incontent based on the data that is recorded for each transaction and theconfiguration of the transaction management system that records thesetransactions. For example, a security service may generate records whensecurity events occur on a computing system, a general event monitoringsystem may generate records when particular events occur on a computingsystem, and an accounting system may generate records when particulartransactions are generated in a commercial system.

Generally, formats of a transaction record and rules for processing andcommitting a transaction record to a data repository may be hard-codedinto an application. When formats and rules for processing transactionsare hard-coded, the logic for processing a transaction may be tightlycoupled to the information defining the format and rules for committingeach type of transaction record to the data repository, as well as logicfor performing associated functions using the information included in atransaction. Thus, as new transaction types are added to an application,additional logic must be written to process those new types oftransactions, and some of the logic may be duplicative of logic alreadywritten for existing transaction types in the application.

Thus, hard-coding the logic for processing transactions can negativelyimpact maintainability and extendibility aspects of the application. Forexample, because the logic for processing various transactions may behard-coded in various locations, updating or modifying the applicationto add new capabilities for an existing type of transaction may be atime consuming task. Further, to add support for new types oftransactions, new code needs to be written, tested, and integrated intothe application. This new code may then be added in various locations inthe code base of the application and may be duplicative of existingcode, which may exacerbate maintainability issues arising fromhard-coding processing logic into the application. Still further, new ormodified code may need to be tested prior to deployment in a productionenvironment. Because testing is generally a time-intensive process andmay increase in complexity as the complexity of the processing logicunder test increases, testing may delay the release of new features inthe application.

Accordingly, techniques are needed to deploy code for processingtransactions in a loosely coupled, efficiently maintainable manner.

BRIEF SUMMARY

Certain embodiments provide a computer-implemented method for processingtransactions in a computing system. The method generally includesreceiving a request to perform an operation with respect to atransaction object included in the request, wherein the transactionobject references a transaction archetype. A definition of thereferenced transaction is retrieved and parsed to identify default datarepositories against which records for the transaction object are to becommitted and default processing rules for values in the transactionobject prior to committing the records for the transaction object to oneor more data repositories. Overriding data repositories or overridingprocessing rules relative to data repositories or processing rulesidentified in the definition of the referenced transaction archetype areidentified from a definition of the transaction object. The transactionobject is processed using a default processing rule of the defaultprocessing rules when no overriding processing rule are defined for thedefault processing rule, or an overriding processing rule of theoverriding processing rules when the overriding processing rule andconflicts with a corresponding default processing rule. Records aregenerated for the processed transaction object, and the generatedrecords are written to the default data repositories when no overridingdata repositories are defined, or the overriding data repositories whenthe overriding data repositories and the default data repositoriesconflict.

Other embodiments provide a system comprising a processor and anon-transitory computer-readable memory storing instructions that, whenexecuted by the processor, perform an operation for processingtransactions in a computing system. The operation generally includesreceiving a request to perform an operation with respect to atransaction object included in the request, wherein the transactionobject references a transaction archetype. A definition of thereferenced transaction is retrieved and parsed to identify default datarepositories against which records for the transaction object are to becommitted and default processing rules for values in the transactionobject prior to committing the records for the transaction object to oneor more data repositories. Overriding data repositories or overridingprocessing rules relative to data repositories or processing rulesidentified in the definition of the referenced transaction archetype areidentified from a definition of the transaction object. The transactionobject is processed using a default processing rule of the defaultprocessing rules when no overriding processing rule are defined for thedefault processing rule, or an overriding processing rule of theoverriding processing rules when the overriding processing rule andconflicts with a corresponding default processing rule. Records aregenerated for the processed transaction object, and the generatedrecords are written to the default data repositories when no overridingdata repositories are defined, or the overriding data repositories whenthe overriding data repositories and the default data repositoriesconflict.

Still further embodiments provide a computer-implemented method forprocessing transactions in a computing system. The method generallyincludes receiving a request to record a transaction in an electronictransaction ledger. A definition of the referenced transaction archetypeis retrieved and parsed to identify a default debit record repositoryagainst which a debit record for the transaction is to be committed, adefault credit record repository against which a credit record for thetransaction is to be committed, and default rules for processing thetransaction. One or more of an overriding credit record repository, anoverriding debit record repository, or processing rules for processingthe transaction are identified from a definition of a type of thetransaction. The transaction is processed based on the processing rulesfor processing the transaction and default rules for processing thetransaction that do not conflict with the identified default rules inthe definition of the type of the transaction. A debit record and acredit record are generated based on the processed transaction. Thedebit record is written to the default debit record repository or theoverriding debit record repository, where the overriding debit recordrepository is used when specified in the definition of the type of thetransaction. The credit record is written to the default credit recordrepository or the overriding credit record repository, where theoverriding credit record repository is used when specified in thedefinition of the type of the transaction.

The following description and the related drawings set forth in detailcertain illustrative features of one or more embodiments.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The appended figures depict certain aspects of the one or moreembodiments and are therefore not to be considered limiting of the scopeof this disclosure.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example computing environment in which atransaction processor processes transactions and commits transactionrecords to one or more data repositories based on transactionarchetypes.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example computing environment in which atransaction processor processes domain-specific objects published bydata generator applications into transaction archetype-based objectsconsumed by data consumer applications.

FIG. 3 illustrates example archetype and transaction definitions.

FIG. 4 illustrates example operations for processing transactions andcommitting transaction records to one or more data repositories based ontransaction archetypes.

FIG. 5 illustrates example operations for processing transactions andcommitting transaction records to one or more data repositories based ontransaction archetypes and override information included in a request toprocess a transaction.

FIG. 6 illustrates example operations for processing transactions andcommitting transaction records to one or more data repositories based ontransaction archetypes on individual items included in a transactionobject.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example computing system with which embodiments ofthe present disclosure may be implemented.

To facilitate understanding, identical reference numerals have beenused, where possible, to designate identical elements that are common tothe drawings. It is contemplated that elements and features of oneembodiment may be beneficially incorporated in other embodiments withoutfurther recitation.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Aspects of the present disclosure provide systems, methods, and computerreadable mediums for processing transactions in a computing system basedon transaction archetypes.

Generally, transaction processing systems are configured to processtransactions based on logic that is tightly coupled to the definition ofa transaction. Generally, the definition of a transaction may includeinformation that specifically defines how a transaction is to beprocessed, such as accounts or data repositories to which transactionrecords are to be persisted, rules for processing the transaction, andthe like.

For example, in an accounting system, various types of transactions maybe tightly coupled to logic that defines specifically the accounts towhich entries are to be made (e.g., which account to credit and whichaccount to debit in a double-entry-based accounting system). Becausedifferent types of transactions are defined with their own dedicatedlogic, maintaining an application to manage these transactions may be atime consuming task, as the logic for handling a specific transactionmay be distributed across many locations in code and changes to thelogic may affect other portions of the code. Further, because manydifferent types of transactions may share common features and similarlogic, the application may include a significant amount of re-used code,which may increase the potential for bugs or other code defects to bereleased in production versions of the application.

Embodiments presented herein improve the maintainability and robustnessof transaction processing systems by defining transactions based ontransaction archetypes. Requests to process a transaction may specify atransaction archetype that defines the default properties for thetransaction, such as default rules for processing the transaction,default data repositories (e.g., account tables) to commit transactionrecords to, and the like. The request may further identify a transactionas a specific type of transaction with properties that override thedefault properties of the transaction to allow for customization withoutneeding custom code to implement customization. Code for processing thetransaction may, thus, use a single codebase for each transactionarchetype that is loosely coupled to logic for processing specific typesof transactions so that potentially duplicative code need not bemaintained for processing different types of transactions independently.Thus, the amount of code implemented for processing transactions may bereduced, which may minimize the amount of persistent storage needed tohost an application and the amount of memory used by each instance ofthe application. Further, the maintainability of the code for processingthese transactions may be increased, as updates to add features ormodify existing features may be made to a single location (e.g., module,class definition, etc.) rather than to duplicated code across variouslocations in the code base of an application. By localizing code forprocessing a transaction, a computing system may be made more robust,for example, by minimizing inconsistencies in code deployed to process atransaction, and inconsistencies in the actions performed in a computingsystem with respect to a transaction. Further, localizing code forprocessing a transaction to a single location may prevent new or updatedcode from adversely affecting the processing of other transactions inthe computing system.

Example Transaction Processing Based on Transaction Archetypes

FIG. 1 illustrates a computing environment 100 in which transactions areprocessed, and records of such transactions are committed to one or moredata repositories, based on transaction archetypes defined for anapplication. As illustrated, computing environment 100 includes aplurality of application instances 110, a transaction processing engine120, a message bus 130 connecting the plurality of application instances110 and the transaction processing engine 120, a plurality oftransaction data stores 140, and a configuration repository 150.

Application instances 110 are generally representative of copies of anapplication executing on one or more computing devices (e.g., servers,server farms, cloud computing platforms, etc.). Each applicationinstance 110 may be associated with a session of an application servinga particular user of the application. Generally, a user can initiate arequest to record a transaction in transaction data stores 140 throughan application instance 110 associated with the user's session. Arequest to record a transaction may include, for example, informationdefining a transaction object to be processed and, in some embodiments,additional information defining overrides to default parameters forprocessing the transaction object. The information defining atransaction object to be processed may reference a transaction archetypeapplicable to the transaction object to be processed, either explicitlyin the request or in a definition of the type of the transaction objectin application instances 110. A transaction object may specify a type oftransaction to be processed by transaction processing engine 120, and,as discussed in further detail below, the type of transaction mayidentify a transaction archetype defining the default parameters forprocessing the transaction object.

In some embodiments, application instance 110 can transmit the requestsynchronously to transaction processing engine 120 using one or moreapplication programming interface (API) calls exposed by the transactionprocessing engine 120. Generally, if application instance 110 transmitsthe request synchronously, transaction processing engine 120 may processthe request and commit transaction records to the appropriatetransaction data stores 140 upon receiving the request from theapplication instance 110. In some embodiments, application instance 110can transmit the request to transaction processing engine 120 by placingthe request on a message bus 130 connecting application instances 110and transaction processing engine 120 for asynchronous processing.Transaction processing engine 120 can receive the requests placed onmessage bus 130 and process the requests independently of when therequests are placed on the message bus by the application instances 110.

Transaction processing engine 120 generally receives requests to processa transaction (e.g., synchronously from an application instance 110 orasynchronously through a message bus 130) and processes the transactionsbased on the default properties defined for the identified archetype ofthe transaction object specified in the request and any overrides to thedefault properties. As illustrated, transaction processing engine 120includes a transaction type identifier 122 and a transaction writeprocessor 124.

Transaction type identifier 122 generally examines the transactionobject included in a request to record a transaction to identify anarchetype for the transaction object included in the request and defaultparameters for processing the request based on the identified archetype.The default parameters may be defined in an archetype definition used bytransaction processing engine 120 to process transaction objects thatreference a specified archetype in the archetype definition.

Generally, an archetype may represent an abstract type that represents agroup of workflows that share a common set of attributes. For example,in an accounting system, transaction archetypes may be defined forclasses of workflows that share credit and debit properties. In anaccounting system, transaction archetypes may be defined for differentincome and expense workflows based on whether transactions are handledon a cash basis or an accrual basis. Cash basis workflows, for example,may be associated with transaction archetypes that record transactionsagainst a cash account and corresponding transactions against assetaccounts; meanwhile, accrual basis workflows may be associated withtransaction archetypes that record income against receivable accountsand record expenses against payable accounts. Each archetype (i.e., fora specific class of transactions, such as cash basis income, cash basisexpenses, accrual basis income, and accrual basis expenses) may beassociated with default repositories in which transaction records are tobe stored and other default pre-processing operations to perform priorto committing the transaction records to the default repositories.Specific types of transactions that reference an archetype may overridethese default repositories and/or default pre-processing operations, asdiscussed in further detail below.

For example, an income archetype may be defined such that a firsttransaction record is committed to a data repository associated withinventory balances and a corresponding second transaction record iscommitted to a data repository associated with cash balances. Likewise,an expense archetype may be defined such that a first transaction recordis committed to a data repository associated with cash balances and acorresponding second transaction record is committed to a datarepository associated with asset balances.

As discussed, a transaction object may reference an archetype to broadlydefine the features of the transaction object. The transaction objectmay further include one or more labels, which may be user-defined labelswithin an application, that identify the type of the transaction objectin more granular detail. For example, the labels may identifytransactions as a specific type of expense (e.g., inventory, payroll,operating expenses, etc.) or a specific type of income (e.g., from salesof goods, asset sales, tax refunds, etc.). In some embodiments, thelabels may be used to allow users of the application to search forparticular types of transactions in the transaction data stores 140.

To identify the archetype for the transaction object, transaction typeidentifier 122 can retrieve, type configuration information fromconfiguration repository 150 for the type of the transaction object. Thetype configuration information for transaction archetypes and anytransaction objects referencing a transaction archetype may be formattedin a variety of markup language formats, such as eXtensible MarkupLanguage (XML), Javascript Object Notation (JSON), or the like, and mayidentify the archetype for the type of the transaction object anddefault parameters for the transaction object that may override defaultparameters for the identified archetype. Based on the identifiedarchetype, transaction type identifier 122 can retrieve the typeconfiguration information associated with the identified archetype fromconfiguration repository 150 to identify the default repositories towrite the transaction object to and operations to perform on thetransaction object prior to writing the transaction object to thedefault repositories.

Transaction write processor 124 uses the transaction archetypeinformation identified by transaction type identifier 122 to process thetransaction object and generate one or more write requests to beexecuted against transaction data stores 140. Prior to generating theone or more write requests, transaction write processor 124 can usepreprocessing rules associated with the identified transaction archetypeto perform one or more operations on the values included in thetransaction object.

For example, in an accounting system, transaction write processor 124may use the preprocessing rules to perform actions such as currencyconversion, selection of items against which transactions are to beperformed against (e.g., to support first in, first out (FIFO)accounting for sales transactions), and the like.

To determine whether one or more preprocessing transactions are to beperformed prior to generating write requests to commit transactionrecords to the transaction data stores 140, transaction write processor124 can use the rules identified by the archetype to determine if dataincluded in the transaction object is to be processed.

For example, a rule in the archetype definition may specify that acurrency conversion operation be performed if the transaction objectincludes information identifying a currency that the transaction wasperformed in and the identified currency is different from the currencyin which records are maintained in transaction data store 140.

Transaction write processor may then obtain, from a remote source, aconversion rate between the currency specified in the archetypedefinition and the currency specified in the transaction object andconvert the values in the transaction object to the currency specifiedin the archetype definition.

In some embodiments, additional rules may be associated with a labelwith which the transaction object is tagged. These rules may overridethe default rules included in or otherwise associated with the archetypedefinition or may add additional rules to those included in thearchetype definition. Where rules associated with the label conflictwith or otherwise override default rules included in or associated withthe archetype definition, the transaction object may be processedaccording to the rules associated with the label rather than thoseassociated with the archetype definition. In some embodiments, thetransaction object may be processed according to the rules associatedwith the archetype and the rules associated with the label, where therules associated with the label do not override or conflict with thoseassociated with the archetype.

More generally, rules may be structured in a hierarchy, where rulesassociated with an archetype are generally applicable unless overriddenby rules associated with a label applied to a transaction. Rulesassociated with a label applied to a transaction may be generallyapplicable to items in the transaction unless overridden by rulesassociated with a label applied to a line item in the transaction. Forexample, suppose an archetype Ai includes rules A, B, C, and D.Generally, any transaction referencing the archetype Ai may be processedaccording to rules A, B, C, and D. If, however, a transaction is labeledwith a transaction type Ti having a schema defining a rule A′ thatoverrides rule A in the archetype Ai, the transaction may be processedaccording to rules A′, B, C, and D. Further, if the transaction type Tihas a schema defining an additional rule E, transactions labeled withthe transaction type Ti may be further processed according to rule E;however, rule E will not apply to transactions that are not labeled withthe transaction type Ti.

After transaction write processor 124 performs preprocessing operationson the transaction object included in the received request, transactionwrite processor 124 can generate one or more write requests to beexecuted against transaction data stores 140 to write a record of thetransaction to the transaction data stores. Generally, in generating theone or more write requests, transaction write processor 124 can identifythe data stores to which transaction records are to be written based ondefault repositories defined in the archetype identified by thetransaction object, overrides in the request or in the transactionobject, and information derived from the transaction object and the useraccount associated with the application instance 110 that generated therequest.

In some embodiments, where the label is associated with an override tothe default repositories and the request also does not include anoverride to the default repositories, transaction write processor 124can generate write requests to perform against the default repositoriesidentified in the archetype definition.

For example, in an accounting application, the archetype definition mayidentify a data repository 140 against which a debit transaction is tobe performed and a data repository 140 against which the correspondingcredit transaction is to be performed. Generally, based on the type oftransaction associated with an archetype, a debit transaction record maybe used to increase the value of an asset account or decrease the valueof a liability account, and a corresponding credit transaction recordmay be used to decrease the value of a corresponding asset account orincrease the value of a corresponding liability account.

For example, suppose that a transaction object is associated with anexpense archetype, in which the value of an asset account is increasedand the value of a cash account is decreased. Transaction writeprocessor 124, based on the archetype definition, may generate a writerequest to commit a debit transaction record to a transaction data storeassociated with the user's asset account and a write request to commit acorresponding credit transaction record to a transaction data storeassociated with the user's cash account. The debit transaction may havea positive value, and the corresponding credit transaction may have anegative value so that the debit and credit transactions offset.

In another example, suppose the transaction object is associated with anincome archetype in which the value of an asset account is decreased andthe value of a cash account is increased. In this example, transactionwrite processor 124 generates a write request to commit a credittransaction record to a transaction data store associated with theuser's asset account and a write request to commit a corresponding debittransaction record to a transaction data store associated with theuser's cash account.

In some embodiments, where the label is associated with an override tothe default repositories or an override is included in the request,transaction write processor 124 can generate write requests to therepositories identified in the label definition or the request. In someembodiments, transaction write processor 124 can analyze the label withwhich the transaction object is tagged to determine the transaction datastores 140 against which the write requests are to be executed. In sucha case, a user may maintain multiple transaction data stores 140, witheach transaction data store 140 being associated with a differentaccount in the user's chart of accounts.

Generally, in processing transactions at transaction processor 120 usingtransaction archetypes and transaction objects referencing one of thetransaction archetypes, a single code base may be implemented for eachtransaction archetype. Custom code need not be maintained for eachspecific type of transaction processed by transaction processor 120.Rather, the single code base for each transaction archetype can useinformation in definitions of the transaction archetype (e.g., schemasdefining a transaction archetype) and the definitions of labelsassociated with a transaction or a specific item in a transaction object(e.g., schemas defining these labels) to process a transaction accordingto the default parameters in the definition of the transaction archetypeand/or overrides in the definition of any labels associated with thetransaction or the specific item in the transaction object. Rather thandefining a parent object and child objects in code with overridefunctions in each of the specific child objects, easily maintainableexternal schemas can be used to define how transactions are processed.Further, functionality may be added to transaction processor 120 usingcode based on the transaction archetypes and need not implement specificcode for specific types of transaction objects, which may accelerate thetesting and deployment of new features in a software application.

Generally, each transaction data store 140 may be associated withdifferent types of transactions to allow a user to record transactionswith a greater degree of granularity than would be obtained in atransaction processing system in which transactions are recorded ingeneralized expense and asset ledgers. For example, suppose a usermaintains separate transaction data stores for payroll expenses,inventory expenses, other operating expenses, accrued payrollobligations, sales income, and a general cash ledger. To identify whichtransaction data stores to commit transaction records to, transactionwrite processor 124 can analyze the information included in atransaction data object to identify which account(s) in a user's chartof accounts are implicated by the transaction. The information mayinclude, for example, counterparty information, a textual descriptionincluded in the transaction, and other information that can besemantically analyzed to semantically determine the transaction datastores against which write requests are to be executed in order torecord a transaction.

Suppose, for example, that a transaction object includes a descriptionincluding words that are semantically related to payroll (e.g., “weeklypay”, “monthly pay”, or the like). A semantic analysis of thedescription included in the transaction object may, for example,calculate a relevance score, distance metric, or other metric indicatinga similarity (e.g., a semantic closeness) between the description in thetransaction object and names of each account in the user's chart ofaccounts. Transaction write processor 124 can select the accounts withthe highest scores and write transaction records to the selectedaccounts.

In some embodiments, transaction write processor 124 may be configuredto generate a plurality of transaction records based on the contents ofthe transaction object included in the received request. In such a case,a transaction object may include a plurality of items, with each itemrepresenting a separate transaction to be committed to the transactiondata stores. Each item may be associated with a label, and transactionwrite processor 124 may generate transaction records for each item inthe transaction object based on the label. Each item, thus, may betreated as its own transaction and may be processed using the techniquesdiscussed above.

For example, suppose that a transaction object references an incomearchetype and includes a plurality of items associated with a saleslabel and an item associated with a discount label. Each of theplurality of items associated with the sales label may be recorded usingsets of transaction records that decrease the value of an inventoryaccount and increase the value of a cash account, and the itemassociated with the discount label may be recorded using a set oftransaction records that decrease the value of the cash account andincrease the value of an expense account.

In some embodiments, an application instance 110 can use the recordscommitted to transaction data stores 140 by the transaction writeprocessor to perform various reporting and calculation tasks.

For example, where an application instance is an accounting system, theapplication instance can use the records to generate profit/lossreports, tax reports, and other reports that may be generated fromrecords of monetary transactions that have been previously recorded.

In some embodiments, the reports generated by the application instance110 may be based on labels assigned to each transaction recorded in thetransaction data stores 140.

For example, an application instance 110 may be configured to generatereports for a particular type of transaction (e.g., all salestransactions performed over a given time period, all payroll expensesincurred over a given time period, etc.). To do so, application instance110 can query a transaction data store 140 for records associated with aparticular type of transaction (e.g., records tagged with a particularlabel) and generate the report based on the records returned from thetransaction data store 140.

Transaction data stores 140 are generally illustrative of different datarepositories in which transaction records may be maintained. While FIG.1 illustrates two transaction data stores in which transaction recordsare stored in transaction data store 140A and counterpart transactionrecords are stored in transaction data store 140B, it should berecognized that the computing environment may include any number oftransaction data stores to which transaction records may be written. Forexample, a user may be associated with any number of transaction datastores, and these transaction data stores may be repositories forparticular types of transaction records, as discussed above.

Configuration repository 150 generally stores the configurationinformation used by transaction processing engine 120 to processtransactions, as discussed above. The configuration information, asdiscussed, may include information defining different transactionarchetypes and information defining different types of transactions thatinherit and/or override properties defined for a given transactionarchetype. The configuration information may be stored as files in avariety of markup language formats and may be updated based on inputgenerated by users of application instances 110 (e.g., to add new typesof transactions, specify overrides to the default properties of a giventransaction archetype, and the like).

FIG. 2 illustrates an example computing environment 200 in which atransaction processor processes domain-specific objects published bydata generator applications into transaction archetype-based objectsconsumed by data consumer applications.

As illustrated, computing environment 200 includes a plurality ofgenerator application instances 210 and a consumer application instance220 that publish and consume messages placed on a message bus 130.Generally, generator application instances 210 may generate variousdomain-specific objects and publish those domain-specific objects forprocessing by transaction processing engine 230. Transaction processingengine 230 in turn, as discussed in further detail below, can translatethese domain-specific objects into transaction archetype-based objectsthat a consumer application instance 220 can consume irrespective of thespecific generator application that generated the domain-specificobjects from which these transaction archetype-based objects weregenerated.

Generator application instances 210A-210B generally represent specificapplications that generate data objects according to a domain-specificdefinition. For example, in an accounting application, a generatorapplication instance 210 may be a payroll application, an invoicingapplication, or the like. The data objects generated by each ofgenerator application instances 210 may be generated according to objectdefinitions maintained for a specific application instance. A payrollapplication may thus generate payroll objects in a format that is usedinternally for processing payroll events, while an invoicing applicationmay generate invoice objects in a format that is used internally forprocessing invoices and is different from the payroll objects used bythe payroll application. To record events generated by generatorapplication instances 210A-210B generator application instances 210 canpublish the generated domain-specific objects on message bus 130 with anindication that the generated domain-specific objects are intended forprocessing by transaction processing engine 230.

Generally, when transaction processing engine 120 consumes a message onmessage bus 130 including domain-specific objects published on messagebus 130 by a generator application instance 210A-210B, transaction typeidentifier 122 generates archetype-based objects using informationdefining mappings between domain-specific objects and archetype-basedobjects that can be used by a consumer application instance 220. As newgenerator application instances are added to a system, new mappings maybe established between the domain-specific objects used by the newgenerator application instances and the archetype-based objects used bythe consumer application instance 220. By translating betweendomain-specific objects and archetype-based objects at transactionprocessing engine 120, a single code base may be maintained at theconsumer application instance 220 for aggregating transactioninformation from each of the plurality of generator applicationinstances 210A-210B regardless of the specific object definitions usedinternally by the generator application instances 210A-210B. As thedefinition of domain-specific objects change (e.g., to include new datafields, deprecate existing data fields, etc.), and as the generatorapplication instances 210A-210B change to add or remove features, thetranslation code in transaction type identifier 122 may be modifiedaccordingly so that domain-specific objects are still translated intoarchetype-based objects.

Transaction write processor 124 generally publishes the archetype-basedobjects generated by transaction type identifier 122 on message bus 130for consumption. The archetype-based objects may be published on messagebus 130 with an indication that the archetype-based objects are intendedfor consumption by the consumer application instance 220.

Consumer application instance 220 generally is an application thataggregates data from the generator application instances 210A-210B foranalysis. Because generator application instances 210A-210B generateobjects using a domain-specific object definitions, but consumerapplication 220 consumes archetype-based objects generated bytransaction processing engine 230, consumer application instance 220 maymaintain a single code base for processing objects generated bygenerator application instances 210A-210B (e.g., in transactionsprocessed by these generator application instances) regardless of thespecific details of the objects generated by generator applicationinstances 210A-210B. For example, in the accounting system describedabove, the generator application instances 210A and 210B can generatevarious domain-specific objects, such as objects for payrolltransactions, objects for invoice transactions, and the like. Based onmappings between these objects and archetype objects, thesedomain-specific objects may be handled at consumer application instance220 as archetype-based objects corresponding to the class of transactionassociated with these domain-specific objects. In this example, thepayroll transactions may be translated into objects referencing anexpense archetype, and the invoice transactions may be translated intoobjects referencing an income archetype. These archetype-based objectsmay be consumed by the consumer application instance 220 by reading oneor more messages on message bus 130 identifying the consumer applicationinstance 220 as the intended recipient. In this case, the consumerapplication instance can aggregate the archetype-based objects generatevarious reports based on the archetype-based objects. These reports mayduplicate reports that can be generated by a specific generatorapplication instance 210 or may be reports that aggregate and analyzedata across the generator application instances 210A-210B (e.g., a totalprofit/loss statement generated from the payroll transactions and theincome associated with the invoices transactions generated by thegenerator application instances 210A-210B).

Example Transaction Archetypes and Transaction Labels

FIG. 3 illustrates an example definition of transaction archetypes andtypes of transactions that reference a transaction archetype.

As illustrated, transaction archetype definition 300 includes aplurality of entries that each define different transaction archetypes,which, as discussed above, generally define default rules for aparticular type of transaction. While transaction archetype definition300 illustrates archetype definitions for transactions in an accountingsystem, it should be recognized that transaction archetypes may bedefined for a variety of transactions for which records are maintainedin a computing system (e.g., file operations in a file system,security-related transactions, etc.).

Transaction archetype definition 300 includes information defining threeexpense-related archetypes and three income-related archetypes. Each ofthese archetypes includes information defining a default account (andthe corresponding default data repository) to commit offsettingtransaction records to (i.e., a first account to commit a debit recordto and a second account to commit a corresponding credit record to). Forexample, the INCOME archetype, which corresponds to an incometransaction in a cash-basis accounting system, defines a default creditaccount as “assets” and a default debit account as “cash”. That is, asystem that processes a transaction having the INCOME archetype would,by default, generate a write request against the data repositoryassociated with the “assets” account to write a credit transaction tothe “assets” account and generate a write request against the datarepository associated with the “cash” account to write a debittransaction to the “cash” account.

Likewise, the EXPENSE archetype, which corresponds to an expenditure ina cash-basis accounting system, defines a default credit account as“cash” and a default debit account as “assets”. Thus, a system thatprocesses a transaction having the EXPENSE archetype would, by default,generate a write request against the repository associated with the“cash” account to write a credit transaction to the “cash” account andgenerate a write request against the repository associated with the“assets” account to write a debit transaction to the “expense” account.

As illustrated, each of the archetypes in transaction archetypedefinition 300 is also associated with a default processing rule forhandling transactions with foreign exchange matters. In each of thesearchetypes, the default rule generally identifies how transactions areprocessed when recorded in a currency other than a default currency(e.g., a currency defined by the user of an application as the currencyin which transactions are performed). Specifically, the default rulespecifies that foreign exchange conversions are converted to the defaultcurrency at “spot” rate.

Transaction objects 310A and 310B illustrate examples of transactionobjects received in a request to write transactions to the appropriatedata repositories. As illustrated, both transaction object 310A and 310Bhave a name (or label), which may be used to filter transactions storedin the transaction data stores 140, include an amount of thetransaction, and reference the EXPENSE archetype. Transaction object310A does not, however, include information identifying an override tothe default parameters in the EXPENSE archetype. Thus, when a systemreceives a request to process a transaction including transaction object310A, the system can generate the write requests against the defaultcredit and debit accounts defined for the EXPENSE archetype. A credittransaction may be written to the “cash” account to reduce the balancein the “cash” account by the amount specified in transaction object310A. A corresponding debit transaction may be written to the “assets”account to increase the balance in the “assets” account by the amountspecified in transaction object 310A.

As illustrated, transaction object 310A includes information specifyingan override to the default “forexConversion” rule identified for theEXPENSE archetype in transaction archetype definition 300. Fortransactions referencing transaction object 310A that are conducted in acurrency that is different from a default currency, the transactions areconverted to the default currency not at the spot rate, but at theaverage rate over the trailing 90 days. Thus, the amount specified inthe transaction may be converted using this average rate, and theconverted amount may be included in the credit and debit transactionsdiscussed above.

Transaction object 310B, however, represents a transaction in which adefault data store specified in a transaction archetype definition isoverridden by a data store specified in the transaction object 3101B. Inthis example, a system that receives transaction object 310B maygenerate a write request against the default credit account for theEXPENSE archetype, as discussed above with respect to transaction object310A. However, as illustrated, transaction object 310B includes anoverride to the debit account to which a corresponding debit transactionis to be written. Thus, rather than writing a debit transaction to the“assets” account defined as the default debit account in transactionarchetype definition 300, a system that processes a request to record atransaction represented by transaction object 310B may write a debittransaction to the “hourlyPay” account to decrease the valance of the“hourlyPay” account by the amount specified in transaction object 310B.

Example Operations for Processing Transactions Based on TransactionArchetypes

FIG. 4 illustrates example operations that may be performed by a system(e.g., transaction processing engine 120 illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2)to process transactions based on transaction archetypes.

As illustrated, operations 400 begin at 410, where a system receives arequest to process a transaction. The transaction generally includes atransaction object which includes an identification of an archetype thatdefines properties of the object. As discussed, the system can receivethe request to process a transaction synchronously from an instance ofan application executing on a server or a client device (e.g., throughan application programming interface (API) call, a Representation StateTransfer (REST) request, etc.) or asynchronously from a queue ofmessages placed on a message bus by the application instances. Thetransaction archetype may be one of a plurality of archetypes defined ina system configuration that defines default rules for processing arequest including the transaction object.

At 420, the system retrieves an archetype definition for use inprocessing the request. The archetype definition may include informationabout default actions to be performed on the transaction object includedin the request and processing rules for the transaction object. Forexample, as discussed above, an archetype definition in an accountingsystem may define different types of transactions and the associateddebit and credit accounts (i.e., data stores) to which offsettingtransaction records are to be recorded.

At 430, the system processes the object according to default actions andprocessing rules identified in the archetype definition and overridesincluded in the received request. Generally, processing the object mayinclude identifying one or more data repositories against whichtransaction records are to be written and writing transaction records tothe identified data repositories. The system can process the object bygenerating a first transaction record to be committed to a first datastore and a second transaction record to be committed to a second datastore, and the first and second transaction records may offset whencombined so that no net change is recorded in a transaction processingsystem. The overrides may be specified within a transaction objectincluded in the received request and/or in the request itself. If nooverrides are included in the received request, the system can processthe transaction according to the default processing rules and defaultactions. Otherwise, where an override is specified for a specific actionor processing rule, the specified override for the action or processingrules can be performed instead of the corresponding default action orprocessing rule specified in the archetype definition. Where an overrideis not specified for a specific action or processing rule, the defaultaction or processing rule included in the archetype definition may beperformed.

In one example, the archetype may identify a default first data storeand a default second data store. The request may specify at least one ofan override first data store to the default first data store or anoverride second data store to the default second data store. To write agenerated record for the processed transaction object, the default firstdata store may be selected as the first data store where the requestdoes not include the override first data store. The override first datastore may be selected where the request includes the override first datastore. The default second data store may be selected as the second datastore where the request does not include the override second data store.Finally, the override second data store may be selected as the seconddata store where the request includes the override second data store.

The transaction object may include a plurality of items. Each respectiveitem of the plurality of items may be associated with a tag specifyingrules for processing the respective item. Records may be generated foreach respective item in the transaction object. To do so, a system canidentify, from the rules for processing the respective item, defaultrepositories against which records for the respective item are to becommitted, and the generated records may be written to the identifieddefault repositories associated with the respective item. Each item inthe transaction object may be processed by identifying, for therespective item, rules for processing the respective item that conflictwith default rules defined for the referenced transaction archetype. Therespective item may be processed using the identified rules instead ofthe conflicting default rules, and non-conflicting rules defined for thereferenced transaction archetype.

The system may further receive a request to generate a report oftransactions associated with the transaction archetype. The system canquery the default data repositories and the overriding data repositoriesfor a set of transactions associated with the transaction archetypeaccording to one or more parameters in the request to generate thereport of transactions. The set of transactions associated with thetransaction archetype retrieved from the default data repositories andthe overriding data repositories may be output for further analysis. Forexample, the set of transactions may be exported to a structured orunstructured document which may be saved on a client device or remotestorage for future retrieval. In another example, the set oftransactions may be exported to an analysis system that can analyze thetransactions and generate graphical reports depicting information aboutthe set of transactions associated with the transaction archetype.

FIG. 5 illustrates further details of example operations 430 illustratedin FIG. 4 that may be performed to process an object according todefault actions and processing rules identified in the archetypedefinition and overrides included in the received request.

As illustrated, operations 430 may begin at block 510, where the systemidentifies, for the object included in the received request, defaultactions and default repositories to perform an action against. Asdiscussed, the system can identify these default actions and defaultrepositories based on the definitions of different transactionarchetypes defined for the system. The system can identify the defaultactions and default repositories for an object included in a transactionby searching the configuration information for information associatedwith the archetype identified in the object. The configurationinformation may be structured according to a markup language schema. Forexample, the configuration information may be structured using tag-valuepairs and tab level information, according to an XML schema, or thelike.

At block 520, the system determines whether an override is included inthe received request. To determine if an override is included in thereceived request, the system can examine a definition of the transactionobject included in a request to determine whether the transaction objectis defined with information identifying an override to a default actionor repository identified in the archetype definition. The system canalso examine the contents of the received request to determine if anyoverrides are included in the received request.

If, at block 520, the system determines that an override is included inthe received request, then at block 530, the system replaces a defaultaction or repository with an action or repository specified as anoverride in the request.

At block 540, the system processes the request based on the actions orrepositories specified as an override in the request and thenon-overridden actions or repositories defined for the archetype

If, however, at block 520, the system determines that no overrides areincluded in the received request, the system may proceed to block 550.At block 550, the system can process the request based on the defaultactions and default repositories included in the archetype definition.

FIG. 6 illustrates further details of example operations 430 illustratedin FIG. 4 that may be performed to process an object on an item-by-itembasis. For example, in an accounting application, an invoice object maybe processed with each line item of the invoice object being its ownitem processed independently of other items included in the invoiceobject. For example, each line item may reference an archetype thatidentifies a default line item debit account and a default line itemcredit account associated with a default line item debit recordrepository and a default line item credit record repository,respectively, and a label associated with a line item of the invoiceobject may specify an override line item debit account and/or anoverride line item credit account associated with an override line itemdebit repository and an override line item credit repository,respectively.

As illustrated, operations 430 begin at block 610, where the systemidentifies properties for an item specified in the object. Each item maybe associated with a tag or a label identifying the item. In such acase, each item may be its own object that may be processedindependently according to the default definition of the archetypereferenced by an item and any overrides to the default definition of thearchetype.

At block 620, the system generates queries to commit information aboutthe item to corresponding repositories based on the definition for thearchetype of the object and the properties of the item. As discussed,the properties of an item may specify actions to perform with respect tothe item prior to committing transaction records for the item to one ormore data repositories. The properties of the item may additionallyspecify default repositories against which transaction records are to bestored. Generally, when an item definition includes a specification ofan action or data repository against which a transaction is to be storedthat conflicts with corresponding information in the archetype of theobject, the action or data repository specified for the item may be usedinstead of the default action or data repository specified in thearchetype of the object.

In some embodiments, generating the queries to commit information aboutthe item to the corresponding repositories may include performing one ormore pre-processing actions on the data associated with one or moreitems in the transaction object. The pre-processing actions may bedefined in the archetype definition, in a definition of a specific itemin an object for which a record is to be generated, or in the request torecord a transaction. In some embodiments, generating a query mayinclude generating a first query to retrieve some relevant data from adata store and use the retrieved data and the data included in theobject to generate a result. The result may be committed to one or moredata repositories according to the data repositories specified in anarchetype of the definition of the specific item.

For example, suppose that a transaction object includes multiple lineitems denominated in a first currency and transactions are defined(e.g., in an archetype) as being recorded in a second currency. Thesystem can retrieve a conversion rate from an outside data source,convert the values in the transaction item from the first currency tothe second currency, and generate one or more transaction records usingthe values converted to the second currency. In another example, asystem may be configured (e.g., according to rules defined in atransaction archetype or a type of item included in a transactionobject) to identify inventory items to associate with a salestransaction. The system can retrieve, from a first data repository,identifiers of objects to associate with a transaction according to theconfiguration. For example, in a sales transaction, the system may beconfigured to identify the oldest items in an inventory data repositoryto match with the items included in an invoice transaction object, andthe system can generate transaction records including identifiers of theoldest items in the inventory data repository and other informationderived from information about the identified oldest items.

At block 630, the system executes the generated queries against thecorresponding repositories.

Example Systems for Processing Transactions Based on TransactionArchetypes

FIG. 7 illustrates an example system 700 that processes transactionsusing transaction archetypes defined for an application executing onsystem 700.

As shown, system 700 includes a central processing unit (CPU) 702, oneor more I/O device interfaces 704 that may allow for the connection ofvarious I/O devices 714 (e.g., keyboards, displays, mouse devices, peninput, etc.) to the system 700, network interface 706 through whichsystem 700 is connected to network 790 (which may be a local network, anintranet, the internet, or any other group of computing devicescommunicatively connected to each other), a memory 708, storage 710, andan interconnect 712.

CPU 702 may retrieve and execute programming instructions stored in thememory 708. Similarly, the CPU 702 may retrieve and store applicationdata residing in the memory 708. The interconnect 712 transmitsprogramming instructions and application data, among the CPU 702, I/Odevice interface 704, network interface 706, memory 708, and storage710.

CPU 702 is included to be representative of a single CPU, multiple CPUs,a single CPU having multiple processing cores, and the like.

Memory 708 is representative of a volatile memory, such as a randomaccess memory, or a nonvolatile memory, such as nonvolatile randomaccess memory, phase change random access memory, or the like. As shown,memory 708 includes a transaction type identifier 720 and a transactionwrite processor 730. Transaction type identifier 720 generally retrievesinformation, from a configuration repository, about a transactionarchetype associated with a transaction in an incoming request to recorda transaction in one or more data repositories (e.g., transaction datastores 750A and 750B in system 700, or a remote data repository). To doso, transaction type identifier 720 can parse out information in areceived request to identify the name of an archetype included in arequest or the transaction object included in a request. Based on theidentified name, transaction type identifier 720 can retrieve anarchetype definition, which includes default actions and repositoriesagainst which a transaction record is to be written.

In some embodiments, where system 700 receives transactions asdomain-specific objects for processing from a generator application,transaction type identifier 720 can translate the domain-specificobjects into archetype-based objects according to mappings defined forthe domain-specific objects. These mappings generally may be defined apriori to identify how domain-specific fields in a domain-specificobject can be mapped to corresponding fields in an archetype-basedobject. These mappings may be updated as the domain-specific objectchanges (e.g., as elements in the domain-specific object are deprecatedor added). As discussed, by translating domain-specific objects intoarchetype-based objects at a transaction processing system (e.g., system700), a single code base may be maintained to generate archetype-basedobjects that can be used by a plurality of consumer applications, andconsumer applications need not be updated to handle changes to existingdomain-specific objects or the introduction of new domain-specificobjects from new generator applications.

Transaction write processor 730 generally uses the default actions anddata repositories, as well as override information included in thetransaction object to write one or more transaction records to one ormore data repositories. Generally, if a received request or atransaction object included in a received request does not include anyoverrides, the default actions and repositories may be used inprocessing the request. Otherwise, overrides in the received request ortransaction object may be used in lieu of a corresponding default actionor repository, and default actions or repositories may be used where nooverride is specified in the received request or transaction object. Insome embodiments, transaction write processor 730 can publish objects toa message bus (e.g., via network connection 706). The objects publishedto the message bus may be archetype-based objects that can be consumedand processed by a variety of consumer application instances usingstandard code for handling archetype-based objects rather than customcode for handling domain-specific objects.

Storage 710 is representative of a non-volatile memory, such as a diskdrive, solid state drive, or a collection of storage devices distributedacross multiple storage systems. Although shown as a single unit, thestorage 710 may be a combination of fixed and/or removable storagedevices, such as fixed disc drives, removable memory cards or opticalstorage, network attached storage (NAS), or a storage area-network(SAN). Storage 710, as illustrated, may include a configuration datastore 740 and one or more transaction data stores 750. Configurationdata store 740 generally includes information defining transactionarchetypes and transaction objects that reference one of the definedtransaction archetypes. The transaction data stores 750 generallyrepresent one or more data repositories in which transaction records maybe written. A transaction data store 750A may be used to record a firstpart of a transaction, and a transaction data store 750B may be used torecord a second part of the transaction, where the first and secondparts of the transaction offset.

Additional Considerations

The preceding description is provided to enable any person skilled inthe art to practice the various embodiments described herein. Variousmodifications to these embodiments will be readily apparent to thoseskilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may beapplied to other embodiments. For example, changes may be made in thefunction and arrangement of elements discussed without departing fromthe scope of the disclosure. Various examples may omit, substitute, oradd various procedures or components as appropriate. Also, featuresdescribed with respect to some examples may be combined in some otherexamples. For example, an apparatus may be implemented or a method maybe practiced using any number of the aspects set forth herein. Inaddition, the scope of the disclosure is intended to cover such anapparatus or method that is practiced using other structure,functionality, or structure and functionality in addition to, or otherthan, the various aspects of the disclosure set forth herein. It shouldbe understood that any aspect of the disclosure disclosed herein may beembodied by one or more elements of a claim.

As used herein, a phrase referring to “at least one of” a list of itemsrefers to any combination of those items, including single members. Asan example, “at least one of: a, b, or c” is intended to cover a, b, c,a-b, a-c, b-c, and a-b-c, as well as any combination with multiples ofthe same element (e.g., a-a, a-a-a, a-a-b, a-a-c, a-b-b, a-c-c, b-b,b-b-b, b-b-c, c-c, and c-c-c or any other ordering of a, b, and c).

As used herein, the term “determining” encompasses a wide variety ofactions. For example, “determining” may include calculating, computing,processing, deriving, investigating, looking up (e.g., looking up in atable, a database or another data structure), ascertaining and the like.Also, “determining” may include receiving (e.g., receiving information),accessing (e.g., accessing data in a memory) and the like. Also,“determining” may include resolving, selecting, choosing, establishingand the like.

The methods disclosed herein comprise one or more steps or actions forachieving the methods. The method steps and/or actions may beinterchanged with one another without departing from the scope of theclaims. In other words, unless a specific order of steps or actions isspecified, the order and/or use of specific steps and/or actions may bemodified without departing from the scope of the claims. Further, thevarious operations of methods described above may be performed by anysuitable means capable of performing the corresponding functions. Themeans may include various hardware and/or software component(s) and/ormodule(s), including, but not limited to a circuit, an applicationspecific integrated circuit (ASIC), or processor. Generally, where thereare operations illustrated in figures, those operations may havecorresponding counterpart means-plus-function components with similarnumbering.

The various illustrative logical blocks, modules and circuits describedin connection with the present disclosure may be implemented orperformed with a general purpose processor, a digital signal processor(DSP), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a fieldprogrammable gate array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device (PLD),discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, or anycombination thereof designed to perform the functions described herein.A general-purpose processor may be a microprocessor, but in thealternative, the processor may be any commercially available processor,controller, microcontroller, or state machine. A processor may also beimplemented as a combination of computing devices, e.g., a combinationof a DSP and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one ormore microprocessors in conjunction with a DSP core, or any other suchconfiguration.

A processing system may be implemented with a bus architecture. The busmay include any number of interconnecting buses and bridges depending onthe specific application of the processing system and the overall designconstraints. The bus may link together various circuits including aprocessor, machine-readable media, and input/output devices, amongothers. A user interface (e.g., keypad, display, mouse, joystick, etc.)may also be connected to the bus. The bus may also link various othercircuits such as timing sources, peripherals, voltage regulators, powermanagement circuits, and the like, which are well known in the art, andtherefore, will not be described any further. The processor may beimplemented with one or more general-purpose and/or special-purposeprocessors. Examples include microprocessors, microcontrollers, DSPprocessors, and other circuitry that can execute software. Those skilledin the art will recognize how best to implement the describedfunctionality for the processing system depending on the particularapplication and the overall design constraints imposed on the overallsystem.

If implemented in software, the functions may be stored or transmittedover as one or more instructions or code on a computer-readable medium.Software shall be construed broadly to mean instructions, data, or anycombination thereof, whether referred to as software, firmware,middleware, microcode, hardware description language, or otherwise.Computer-readable media include both computer storage media andcommunication media, such as any medium that facilitates transfer of acomputer program from one place to another. The processor may beresponsible for managing the bus and general processing, including theexecution of software modules stored on the computer-readable storagemedia. A computer-readable storage medium may be coupled to a processorsuch that the processor can read information from, and write informationto, the storage medium. In the alternative, the storage medium may beintegral to the processor. By way of example, the computer-readablemedia may include a transmission line, a carrier wave modulated by data,and/or a computer readable storage medium with instructions storedthereon separate from the wireless node, all of which may be accessed bythe processor through the bus interface. Alternatively, or in addition,the computer-readable media, or any portion thereof, may be integratedinto the processor, such as the case may be with cache and/or generalregister files. Examples of machine-readable storage media may include,by way of example, RAM (Random Access Memory), flash memory, ROM (ReadOnly Memory), PROM (Programmable Read-Only Memory), EPROM (ErasableProgrammable Read-Only Memory), EEPROM (Electrically ErasableProgrammable Read-Only Memory), registers, magnetic disks, opticaldisks, hard drives, or any other suitable storage medium, or anycombination thereof. The machine-readable media may be embodied in acomputer-program product.

A software module may comprise a single instruction, or manyinstructions, and may be distributed over several different codesegments, among different programs, and across multiple storage media.The computer-readable media may comprise a number of software modules.The software modules include instructions that, when executed by anapparatus such as a processor, cause the processing system to performvarious functions. The software modules may include a transmissionmodule and a receiving module. Each software module may reside in asingle storage device or be distributed across multiple storage devices.By way of example, a software module may be loaded into RAM from a harddrive when a triggering event occurs. During execution of the softwaremodule, the processor may load some of the instructions into cache toincrease access speed. One or more cache lines may then be loaded into ageneral register file for execution by the processor. When referring tothe functionality of a software module, it will be understood that suchfunctionality is implemented by the processor when executinginstructions from that software module.

The following claims are not intended to be limited to the embodimentsshown herein, but are to be accorded the full scope consistent with thelanguage of the claims. Within a claim, reference to an element in thesingular is not intended to mean “one and only one” unless specificallyso stated, but rather “one or more.” Unless specifically statedotherwise, the term “some” refers to one or more. No claim element is tobe construed under the provisions of 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) unless theelement is expressly recited using the phrase “means for” or, in thecase of a method claim, the element is recited using the phrase “stepfor.” All structural and functional equivalents to the elements of thevarious aspects described throughout this disclosure that are known orlater come to be known to those of ordinary skill in the art areexpressly incorporated herein by reference and are intended to beencompassed by the claims. Moreover, nothing disclosed herein isintended to be dedicated to the public regardless of whether suchdisclosure is explicitly recited in the claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for processing transactions in acomputing system, comprising: receiving a request to perform anoperation with respect to a transaction object included in the request,wherein the transaction object references a transaction archetype;retrieving a definition of the referenced transaction archetype; parsingthe definition of the referenced transaction archetype to identifydefault data repositories against which records for the transactionobject are to be committed and default processing rules for values inthe transaction object prior to committing the records for thetransaction object to one or more data repositories; identifying, from adefinition of the transaction object, overriding data repositories oroverriding processing rules relative to data repositories or processingrules identified in the definition of the referenced transactionarchetype; processing the transaction object using: a default processingrule of the default processing rules when no overriding processing ruleare defined for the default processing rule, or an overriding processingrule of the overriding processing rules when the overriding processingrule and conflicts with a corresponding default processing rule;generating records for the processed transaction object; and writing thegenerated records for the processed transaction object to: the defaultdata repositories when no overriding data repositories are defined, orthe overriding data repositories when the overriding data repositoriesand the default data repositories conflict.
 2. The method of claim 1,wherein generating records for the processed transaction objectcomprises generating a first transaction record to be committed to afirst data store and generating a second transaction record to becommitted to a second data store, wherein the first and the secondtransaction records, when combined, offset such that no net change isrecorded in a transaction processing system.
 3. The method of claim 2,wherein: the referenced transaction archetype identifies a default firstdata store and a default second data store. the request specifies atleast one of an override first data store to the default first datastore or an override second data store to the default second data store,and writing the generated records for the processed transaction objectcomprises: selecting the default first data store as the first datastore where the request does not include the override first data store;selecting the override first data store as the first data store wherethe request includes the override first data store; selecting thedefault second data store as the second data store where the requestdoes not include the override second data store; and selecting theoverride second data store as the second data store where the requestincludes the override second data store.
 4. The method of claim 1,wherein: the transaction object includes a plurality of items, and eachrespective item of the plurality of items is associated with a tagspecifying rules for processing the respective item.
 5. The method ofclaim 4, wherein: generating records for the processed transactionobject comprises: for the respective item, identifying, from the rulesfor processing the respective item, default repositories against whichrecords for the respective item are to be committed; and writing thegenerated records for the processed transaction object comprises:committing the generated records to the identified default repositoriesassociated with the respective item.
 6. The method of claim 4, whereinprocessing the transaction object comprises: identifying, for therespective item, rules for processing the respective item that conflictwith default rules defined for the referenced transaction archetype; andprocessing the respective item using the identified rules instead of theconflicting default rules, and non-conflicting rules defined for thereferenced transaction archetype.
 7. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: receiving a request to generate a report of transactionsassociated with the transaction archetype; querying the default datarepositories and the overriding data repositories for a set oftransactions associated with the transaction archetype according to oneor more parameters in the request to generate the report oftransactions; and outputting the set of transactions associated with thetransaction archetype retrieved from the default data repositories andthe overriding data repositories.
 8. A system, comprising: a processor;and a memory having instructions stored thereon which, when executed bya processor, performs an operation for processing transactions in acomputing system, the operation comprising: receiving a request toperform an operation with respect to a transaction object included inthe request, wherein the transaction object references a transactionarchetype, retrieving a definition of the referenced transactionarchetype, parsing the definition of the referenced transactionarchetype to identify default data repositories against which recordsfor the transaction object are to be committed and default processingrules for values in the transaction object prior to committing therecords for the transaction object to one or more data repositories,identifying, from a definition of the transaction object, overridingdata repositories or overriding processing rules relative to datarepositories or processing rules identified in the definition of thereferenced transaction archetype, processing the transaction objectusing: a default processing rule of the default processing rules when nooverriding processing rule are defined for the default processing rule,or an overriding processing rule of the overriding processing rules whenthe overriding processing rule and conflicts with a correspondingdefault processing rule, generating records for the processedtransaction object, and writing the generated records for the processedtransaction object to: the default data repositories when no overridingdata repositories are defined, or the overriding data repositories whenthe overriding data repositories and the default data repositoriesconflict.
 9. The system of claim 8, generating records for the processedtransaction object comprises generating a first transaction record to becommitted to a first data store and generating a second transactionrecord to be committed to a second data store, wherein the first and thesecond transaction records, when combined, offset such that no netchange is recorded in the system.
 10. The system of claim 9, wherein:the referenced transaction archetype identifies a default first datastore and a default second data store. the request specifies at leastone of an override first data store to the default first data store oran override second data store to the default second data store, andwriting the generated records for the processed transaction objectcomprises: selecting the default first data store as the first datastore where the request does not include the override first data store,selecting the override first data store as the first data store wherethe request includes the override first data store, selecting thedefault second data store as the second data store where the requestdoes not include the override second data store, and selecting theoverride second data store as the second data store where the requestincludes the override second data store.
 11. The system of claim 8,wherein: the object includes a plurality of items, each respective itemof the plurality of items is associated with a tag specifying rules forprocessing the respective item.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein:generating records for the processed transaction object comprises: forthe respective item, identifying, from the rules for processing therespective item, default repositories against which records for therespective item are to be committed, and writing the generated recordsfor the processed transaction object comprises: committing the generatedrecords to the identified default repositories associated with therespective item.
 13. The system of claim 11, wherein processing thetransaction object comprises: identifying, for the respective item,rules for processing the respective item that conflict with defaultrules defined for the referenced transaction archetype; and processingthe respective item using the identified rules instead of theconflicting default rules, and non-conflicting rules defined for thereferenced transaction archetype.
 14. The system of claim 11, whereinthe operation further comprises: receiving a request to generate areport of transactions associated with the transaction archetype;querying the default data repositories and the overriding datarepositories for a set of transactions associated with the transactionarchetype according to one or more parameters in the request to generatethe report of transactions; and outputting the set of transactionsassociated with the transaction archetype retrieved from the defaultdata repositories and the overriding data repositories.
 15. A method forprocessing transactions in a computing system, comprising: receiving arequest to record a transaction in an electronic transaction ledger;retrieving a definition of the referenced transaction archetype; parsingthe definition of the referenced transaction archetype to identify adefault debit record repository against which a debit record for thetransaction is to be committed, a default credit record repositoryagainst which a credit record for the transaction is to be committed,and default rules for processing the transaction; and identifying, froma definition of a type of the transaction, one or more of an overridingcredit record repository, an overriding debit record repository, orprocessing rules for processing the transaction; processing thetransaction based on the processing rules for processing the transactionand default rules for processing the transaction that do not conflictwith the identified default rules in the definition of the type of thetransaction; generating a debit record and a credit record based on theprocessed transaction; writing the debit record to the default debitrecord repository or the overriding debit record repository, where theoverriding debit record repository is used when specified in thedefinition of the type of the transaction; and writing the credit recordto the default credit record repository or the overriding credit recordrepository, where the overriding credit record repository is used whenspecified in the definition of the type of the transaction.
 16. Themethod of claim 15, wherein: the transaction comprises a plurality ofline items, and each respective item of the plurality of line items isassociated with a tag specifying rules for processing the respectiveitem.
 17. The method of claim 16, wherein: generating the debit recordand the credit record based on the processed transaction comprises: forthe respective item, identifying, from the rules for processing therespective item, a default line item debit record repository and adefault line item credit record repository associated with the tag;writing the debit record comprises committing the debit record to thedefault line item debit record repository; and writing the credit recordcomprises committing the credit record to the default line item creditrecord repository.
 18. The method of claim 16, wherein processing thetransaction comprises: identifying, for the respective item, rules forprocessing the respective item that conflict with default rules definedfor the referenced transaction archetype; and processing the respectiveitem using the identified rules instead of the conflicting defaultrules, and non-conflicting rules defined for the referenced transactionarchetype.
 19. The method of claim 15, further comprising: receiving arequest to generate a report of transactions associated with thetransaction archetype; querying the default debit record repository,default credit record repository, overriding debit record repository,and overriding credit record repository for a set of transactionsassociated with the transaction archetype according to one or moreparameters in the request to generate the report of transactions; andoutputting the set of transactions associated with the transactionarchetype retrieved from the default debit record repository, defaultcredit record repository, overriding debit record repository, andoverriding credit record repository.
 20. The method of claim 15, furthercomprising: semantically determining the default debit record repositoryand the default credit record repository based on a semantic closenessof data repositories identified in the definition of the referencedtransaction archetype and names of data repositories maintained for auser of the electronic transaction ledger.